Japan’s Olympic delegation held a wrap-up ceremony at a Tokyo hotel on Thursday following a highly successful campaign at the Rio Games. Decathlete and Japan’s flagbearer at the Games, Keisuke Ushiro, handed back the flag to Japanese Olympic Committee chief Tsunekazu Takeda before chef ...

China has lashed out over the visit Monday by two of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet ministers to Yasukuni Shrine. “China is firmly opposed” to the visits, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said in a statement released late Monday. However, unlike the last couple ...

Tamayo Marukawa, Japan’s newly-appointed Olympic minister, told the media on Friday one of the biggest concerns she has about hosting the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo is the heavy traffic in the capital, which could cause transportation issues for athletes and fans. ...

Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa and her Chinese counterpart, Chen Jining, have agreed to cooperate on nuclear plant safety and fight against air pollution. In contrast to Japan-China tensions over history and maritime issues, Marukawa and Chen said during a meeting Tuesday in Beijing that ...

Wrapping up the Group of Seven environment ministers’ meeting Monday, Tamayo Marukawa, as chairwoman of the talks, hailed the “strong political will” demonstrated by the group to implement the landmark Paris climate accord reached last year. Critics, meanwhile, point out that without effective measures ...

Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa on Friday withdrew remarks she reportedly made about the government’s radiation decontamination target following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Speaking at a news conference, Marukawa said she apologizes from the bottom of her heart to those suffering from the ...

Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa came under fire Tuesday for what opposition lawmakers called an insensitive gaffe that appeared to ridicule the fears of people in Fukushima Prefecture over radiation exposure. At the center of the controversy was a remark she reportedly made Sunday during ...

Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa held meetings with Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for global warming, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Paris on Sunday on the sidelines of a key climate change conference sponsored by the United Nations. Marukawa and Xie confirmed that countries ...

Exports of advanced technology for coal-fired power plants will help fight global warming, the nation’s environment minister has said, even though the world’s richest nations has decided to restrict subsidies on such exports. Many developing countries will continue to look to coal-fired power plants ...

Newly appointed Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa says the ministry will continue to lobby Fukushima residents to back the construction of storage and disposal facilities for radioactive waste generated by the Fukushima nuclear crisis.